Last Pitch Attempt

Dear Hollywood, Please Make a Movie About Conscious Uncoupling

This week, Gwyneth Paltrow announced that she and Chris Martin are “consciously uncoupling.” That’s a good enough story to be a movie! So we’ve turned it into a pitch, along with four other notable news stories from the week.

Ten years ago, popular American actress Twyla Nichol (Kate Hudson) married popular English singer-songwriter Damian Albus (Tom Hiddleston) and they instantly became one of the most envied couples in the world. Rich, successful, and seemingly blissfully happy, Twyla and Damian, or Twyn as they became known, seemed remarkably unbothered by the slings and arrows of the celebrity world. But then one day, Twyn announces that they have come undone. They are breaking up, amicably, but definitely over. Cut to Lucy Kline (Emma Stone), an intrepid reporter from the States, who has traveled to England to investigate the sudden split. She has a chance encounter with the couple’s frightened former nanny (Amanda Plummer, in a terrific cameo), who tells Lucy a shocking story of the truth behind the glossy, perfectly elegant veneer. Soon Lucy finds herself journeying into a dark London underworld of lies, madness, and murder, a world this famous couple seems to be at the dead center of. The Loneliest Planet director Julia Loktev directs this moody, stylish mystery about the real nature of fame.

An Airplane

In Armando Iannucci’s dark but poignant satire, Vera Farmiga plays cable news executive Clara Marsh, whose network is struggling in the ratings after the departure of their flagship firebrand anchor Grant Gordon (Denis Leary). Tasked with saving the network or risk losing her job, Clara seizes an opportunity for a big story when an airplane goes mysteriously missing off the coast of the Azores. With a huge ocean to search and plenty of radar confusion, it’s the perfect story to subject to a relentless, 24-hour news campaign of speculation. And it works! The network is on top for two straight weeks, with even the citizen journalists of the Internet turning to WWN for updates. But when newspaper reporter Max Abrams (Adrien Brody) starts sniffing around and tells Clara that he thinks this whole missing plane thing is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by her bosses, Clara has to make some difficult decisions about what she thinks the news should be. Featuring a terrific ensemble cast that includes Bob Balaban, Fairuza Balk, Regina King, and Catherine O’Hara as network president Arlene McBride, An Airplane is a riotous sendup of the news business and an honest, unflinching look at one woman’s ambition.

The Drift

The world braces itself for the next technological revolution when social media tech giant Digius announces the purchase of a company that has produced truly cutting edge virtual reality technology. It’s called Prime Drift, a fully immersive simulation that promises to be not just the future of video gaming, but of how all of humanity spends its free time. Young Digius employee Alex Bergson (Frank Ocean) is thrilled to be one of the first people asked to test the equipment, and back at his apartment he and his girlfriend Dorian Swan (Annie Clark of St. Vincent fame) plug in to play Prime Drift’s first game, an adventure called The Dark Quest. The world of the game is huge and Alex and Dorian quickly lose each other. But when Alex unplugs and returns to the real world, he’s horrified to find Dorian missing and his apartment splattered with blood. What’s more alarming is that he’s holding what looks to be the murder weapon in his gaming glove. Knowing he’ll be a suspect, Alex flees, trying to stay one step ahead of the police while he goes on his own dark quest to solve the mystery. With harrowing sequences that take place both in the real world and in virtual reality, The Drift is the latest odd wonderment from Upstream Color director Shane Carruth, and his first time with a studio budget.

The Bells of St. Peter’s

For college student Grayson Price (United States of Tara’s Keir Gilchrist) a spring internship at the White House seemed like opportunity enough. So when he’s told that he’ll be traveling to Rome when the President goes to meet the Pope, he can’t believe his amazing luck. When he gets to the Vatican, though, he quickly learns that tagging along during a lot of boring meetings isn’t the most exciting way to see the Eternal City. That is, until he meets seminary student Francis (Noah’s Douglas Booth), who whisks Grayson off on his moped for a whirlwind tour of the city of seven hills. The city is beautiful, the food is amazing, and, well, Francis is pretty good company. Might something more be happening? Grayson hopes so, but he worries that a young White House aide caught in a compromising position with a soon-to-be priest could cause some sort of international scandal! Grayson has to learn to honor his responsibilities while following his heart in this spirited and oddball romantic comedy from director Drew Barrymore.

Making the Cut

In this uproarious comedy from director Larry Charles, Melissa McCarthy plays Darcy Kurtz, a down-on-her-luck hairstylist now infamous for creating a ‘90s TV character’s trademark terrible haircut. When Darcy is approached by a shady diplomat from an isolated, dictatorial Asian nation and offered a lot of money for one big job, she can’t really say no. She’s got a landlord beating down her door and a salon that’s all but out of business. So she and her trusty assistant Zayn (Justin Long) get on a rickety plane and hours later land in a strange and repressive place. Darcy’s job is to teach every barber and hairdresser in the country to do the terrible haircut, a rule set down by the nation’s bizarre leader. Soon, though, Darcy is instead teaching everyone how to let their freak flags fly, and winning the heart of sexy photojournalist Hank Dickens (Jon Hamm) in the process. Costarring Margaret Cho as the leader’s harsh, controlling attaché and Daniel Dae Kim as a sexy bodyguard who catches Zayn’s eye.